Windkraft Ukraine LLC (Skadovsk, Kherson region) by the end of this year plans to bring the installed capacity of its wind farms in Kherson region to 170 MW and the company is mulling the next project to boost them by another 150-170 MW, Windkraft Ukraine Director Carl Sturen has said. “By the end of the year there will be 170 MW: 100 MW have been added,” he told Interfax-Ukraine on the sidelines of the recent YES Conference organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Kyiv, commenting on the development of the company in 2018. Sturen said that this year the company used its own funds and bank loans. According to him, to implement plans for further expansion, Windkraft Ukraine will consider various financing options.
The director said that while the company, using its own resources, began to build a substation that will allow increasing the capacity. He said that the new sites are not far from the already developed ones.
Asked why Windkraft Ukraine remains committed to wind farms, not solar power plants, which are more popular among investors due to a higher tariff and lower investment, Sturen said that he considers the windfarm business more sustainable. “The wind is more sustainable: it is more complicated, but it fits better with the energy system and is better for the consumer,” the director said.
DTEK Renewables has raised EUR 90 million for construction of the first phase of Prymorska wind farm with a capacity of 100 MW in Zaporizhia region, the press service of DTEK Energy Holding reported. The press service said that the loan for the construction of the first stage of the wind farm was issued by a consortium of German banks (Bayerische Landesbank, KfW IPEX-Bank, Bremer Kreditbank and others) with risk coverage provided by German export credit agency (ECA) Euler Hermes. The loan term is 10 years after the technical commissioning of the plant.
DTEK reminded that this is the third financing agreement signed with European financial institutions for the construction of the company’s wind energy projects. For the implementation of the first wind farm project in the company’s portfolio, the Botiyevska Wind Farm, DTEK raised loans in the total amount of EUR 235 million from Germany’s LandesBank Berlin (Berliner Sparkasse) in 2012-2014.
DTEK CEO Maksym Tymchenko said that in recent years, the company raised EUR 335 million from German banks for the construction of new wind farms. This April, DTEK and Chinese company CMEC signed an agreement valued at EUR 134 million to build Nikopol solar power plant (200 MW) with the total cost of the project of EUR 235 million.
“Such sustainable interest from international investors in renewable generation in Ukraine gives us confidence in the implementation of our strategic plans – to have 1,000 MW of ‘green’ facilities in the portfolio by 2020,” he said.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will consider a loan worth up to EUR 150 million for LLC SyvashEnergoProm, a subsidiary of Norway’s NBT, for the construction of a 250 MW wind farm in Kherson region, the lender said on its website. “This is a long-term senior loan of up to EUR 150 million in an A/B structure, of which up to EUR 75 million would be funded from the EBRD resources and the remainder would be syndicated in a B-loan structure to eligible institutions. The remaining project financing is expected to be provided via parallel loans from IFIs, DFIs, and other investors,” the Bank said.
The total cost of the project is EUR 369 million.
The project will help support the development of renewable energy in Ukraine and the overall decarbonisation of the energy sector. As was reported, NBT SA, which is a Norwegian wind farm developer with operating wind farms in China, in April 2018 bought LLC SyvashEnergoProm (operates a wind farm whose capacity is about 3 MW). It plans to build a wind farm with a capacity of 250-330 MW in neighboring areas.
Norwegian-based NBT in April 2018 bought Syvashenergoprom (Kherson region, operates a wind farm with a capacity of about 3 MW) and intends to build a wind power plant with an installed capacity of 250-330 MW in the adjacent territories, the company’s website said. “In April 2018 NBT acquired the Ukrainian company Syvashenergoprom, which serves a 3 MW wind farm and is developing another 250-330 MW wind power project … NBT also signed several contracts for the development of other projects in Ukrainian wind energy, continues to seek new opportunities for the development of this market,” the report says.
As reported, in 2006 Kherson Regional State Administration transferred the unfinished Syvash wind power plant to concession to Syvashenergoprom until 2055. In 2011 Syvashenergoprom signed a lease agreement for 12 hectares of land under the concession wind farm and 1,300 hectares for the construction of new wind and solar generating facilities. NBT currently owns a 49% stake in Linxi wind farm with a capacity of 100 MW and a 33% stake in Baicheng wind farm with a capacity of 49.5 MW in China.
Odesa Regional State Administration has signed a memorandum of cooperation with the wind energy company Soratano Ukraine LLC. According to the press service of the administration, the document provides for the construction of a wind power plant in Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky district of Odesa region. The total amount of investments is about EUR250 million.
“We’ve agreed to cooperate in the implementation of a project, which provides for the construction of a 100 MW power plant,” the press service said citing Head of Odesa Regional State Administration Maksym Stepanov.
The report also notes that the power plant is designed for 30 wind generators. The investor plans to complete the construction until 2020.
According to open data, the founder of Soratano Ukraine LLC is Cypriot SORATANO LTD, the ultimate beneficiary is a citizen of Belgium residing in Ukraine. At the same time, there are no online references to the implementation of such projects by these companies. As reported, Odesa Regional State Administration agreed to implement a similar project with little-known Ukraine Power Resources.
BILHOROD-DNISTROVSKY DISTRICT, BUILD, ODESA REGION, SORATANO UKRAINE, WIND FARM